The BBC have just peak-transed the nation

[MutantDisco]

Did anyone see the report on the evening news?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-46634595/should-the-nhs-pay-for-transgender-fertility-treatment

But where are all these surrogate mothers going to come from?

Not India, it seems.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/20/india-bans-commercial-surrogacy-stop-rent-womb-exploitation/

I note the article makes particular mention of the demand from the US; this new legislation might cause a few sloppy thinkers to wake up a little.

No worries, the endgame of neoliberalism will create enough abject poverty and destitution to ensure ample supply of Western wombs for rent.

I just hope it doesn't become a viable job option for women on UC.

This surely is why we are seeing more calls to change current uk laws round surrogacy.
This. Absolutely. It's only a matter of time before we see the first 'living body' investment trusts.

I'm listening to the Radio series linked previously from Julie Bindel's tweet. Its narrated by Dustin Lance Black (Tom Daley's partner).

I'm really struck by how the woman/women carrying and giving birth to children are seemingly always described as 'the surrogate/ their surrogate/ our surrogate / surrogates'

Tbf surrogate is a better term than “gestational carriers” which is utterly revolting and dehumanising.

It's more the absence of the person in the description eg the woman.

A long time ago people stopped talking about for example 'the homeless', instead recognising and respecting that there were people; men, women and children who were homeless.

Off topic but couldn't not mention it - the voice over and text on the screen mention clinical commissioning groups in England, but the accompanying illustration shows England and Wales (At 1:45). It's not clear which is correct. Very sloppy.

I think it's all a bit like having your leg amputated because you have body dysphoria and then wanting the NHS to pay for a high tech artificial leg. It just seems completely outside the realms of what a cost cutting NHS has the finances to do.

A lot of women find pregnancy distressing, but as far as I know the NHS wouldn't fund a surrogate pregnancy for them? (And there would also be the practical problem of finding a surrogate).

In several areas of England, the NHS no longer offers IVF, at all, to anyone.
So anyone having sperm or eggs frozen will not be able to use them at a later date, without paying for IVF privately.
I am not optimistic about an increase in the availability of NHS IVF over the next decade or two.

Certainly seems a bit pointless to freeze gametes or embryos on the NHS if the NHS then isn’t in a position to do anything with them...

Collecting eggs isn’t an easy/cheap process (unlike sperm) after all.

Maybe someone should tell Noah that in America a surrogate baby costs $100k+ So in the unlikely event that surrogacy is legalised over here it will be even more unaffordable to all but the very rich.

There so much naïveté with these young transgender people. That you can take industrial amounts of fake hormones and have terrifying operations and your body will be absolutely ok and have no complications. That you will absolutely have no problem meeting someone who accepts you after all that and loving you just as you are now. And then you will find a surrogate and be able to pay for it all.

It’s completely crazy and all just pie in the sky fantasy.

What was with Noah? I couldn't get it.

She wants a handsome bloke and she wants a baby... and she's what ? a man?

Um, lying about being non-binary isn't cool.

I wonder if Noah knows the odds of conceiving using frozen eggs. And about the possibility of an accidental defrost.

My friend who is 45 is lovely but never met a man she wanted to spend her life with, I'm pretty sure she is asexual, she decided to have a baby this year by donor and now has a beautiful baby girl but she had to pay for the entire treatment herself in order to get pregnant before it was too late for her to conceive without IVF.
It was a ton of money but she wanted a family. Why couldn't she get this treatment on the NHS?

I am so surprised that the only reasonable trans person on that programme was the one born female. Behold my surprised face.

Also, Cruella? Really? Where has this person stashed the Dalmation puppies?

Cruella is at least a refreshing difference in direction from variants of Fae and other "If I squint I'm Grace Kelly" style names.

I'm waiting for someone to have the balls to try Lucretia or Morticia.

But where are all these surrogate mothers going to come from? Even if payment and commercialisation were legalised (in the UK) I really don't think it's something that large numbers of women will be queuing up to do.

Maybe they plan to force us to do it. Maybe the plan is to guilt trip us into it ("trans people will literally die if a surrogate doesn't come forward you selfish bigot!"). Maybe they've reached the "axolotl tanks" stage of misogynist batshittery.

In the case of this particular young person I don't think the question has even occurred to them. Long term consequences, what are those?

Therefore, the best source of surrogates would be "trans ally" young women between 21 to 25. There could also be a campaign for the minimum age a woman can be a surrogate to be lowered.

I've seen young handmaidens offering to donate their uteri in a notably performative way before. Much like the young person in the video, I suspect they have very little idea what would be involved in that process.

But where are all these surrogate mothers going to come from?

As the challenge to the NHS was on the basis of seeking parity with the NICE 'gold standard' fertility protocols for people diagnosed with cancer, one presumes that any future demands / expectations may be similarly framed.
There are a few specialist services, charities, organisations which offer specific support to those who having survived cancer treatments get to the point (5 years?) past diagnosis, when they might consider their fertility options.

These are not especially well-established options.

Just to add to the crazy has anyone tried to get an NHS sterilisation?

Yup. I have a medical condition and the amount of drugs I am on would be disastrous for a baby, along with me already having 2 and this being definitely enough for me. But..I might change my mind apparently, and am also too young (31)

Wow, with 31 and two children you are too young to make the decision to get yourself sterilized? Good that (obviously childless) 11 year olds can make these types of decisions for themselves then.